Mountainaire Avian Rescue Society  

My Experience at MARS

            Where to begin . . . I’ve done and seen so many new things since I started here.  My two months here have passed so quickly, the days seem to go on forever but the weeks fly by, if that makes any sense.  The first week was slow and all about learning where things are, the daily routines and reading manuals on basic care.  The first major bird I was involved with was the osprey.  I was holding her day one and force feeding her myself on day 2.  She had a puncture in her esophagus and that was repaired by a surgery I watched at Shamrock Vet. Unfortunately she didn’t make it and it was hard to lose the first patient I had put that much investment into.

            The internship at MARS definitely involves lots of work.  The days usually ranged from 7am to 9pm with occasional 11pm feedings when the seal pups were in.  The morning begins with feeding and cleaning as well as the laundry which involves scraping poop.  You will end up wearing poop more than once while you are here.  You will also do diverse jobs as needed through out the day. Some of my most unforgettable jobs were picking maggots out of the trash can to feed the Virginia Rail and sifting through 10,000 meal worms and sorting between worms and pupae.  I’m not a big fan of bugs so I guess that why those stick out most.

            Deaths do occur on a regular basis here but one gets over it and focuses on the survivors.  The releases are what one is working towards and they are quite worth all the effort.  Even seeing the robin you raised from a nestling fly free is a sense of accomplishment.  The eagles and other birds of prey are a real treat to release.

My goal is to become a Veterinarian so I absolutely enjoyed all the time volunteering with the vets and veterinary technicians at Sunrise, Puntledge, Shamrock and Van Isle Vets.  I would have loved to have even more time at the vet clinics.  I went to Sunrise many times and greatly enjoyed their staff, I also felt that due to their size I was more able to be involved in everything that was going on and felt like I might have actually been helpful there.  At every vet clinic, I observed several surgeries, including spays, neuters, dental extractions and even a double mastectomy on a dog.  At Van Isle there were two new vets freshly graduated from vet school and it was a real treat to talk to them and get advice on vet school admissions.  It was interesting to observe so many vet clinics because everyone has there own different way of running things and it gives a great overview of what veterinary work is like.  I think this is definitely a step in the right direction on my way to vet school.  I would like to thanks all the vet clinics for letting me come in to observe, it was greatly appreciated.

            My favorite patients I’d have to say were the black tailed deer fawns.  Their cute little faces, sweet personalities and little kisses just make them irresistible.  The seal pups were absolutely cute too.  The baby robins and swallows were quite a joy to take care of, while the flicker babies were quite obnoxious.  I had a special fondness for a band tailed pigeon we got in who would only drink if you held a cup up to his mouth and would only eat out of his food dish once I started feeding him with tweezers.  Everyday you had to feed him a few bites with tweezers first otherwise he wouldn’t eat out of his dish, he liked to be coddled.  We also had what I called the cute tub full of babies that at one point had 2 wood ducks, 6 quail and a ruffed grouse.  The precocial chicks are the cutest baby birds.

            I also enjoyed doing the necropsies although that sounds morbid.  I enjoyed trying to find out why a patient died so maybe we could recognize the signs next time.

            The other intern and I worked on a project called don’t touch the pups.  We created brochures and signs informing the public that it is normal to find a seal pup on the beach and that doesn’t necessarily mean they are abandoned.  We wrote our own press release and it was great to see it printed in the local paper almost word for word with our names and quotes in it. We were also in the newspaper releasing 2 eagles and in both pictures I’m cut out by less the two inches, bummer.  We also were on the television news when a freelance reporter found an eagle to be saved and filmed our capture.

            Every other Sunday we got up at 5:15 am to band hummingbirds.  The first time we caught zero and the next 2 so it was quite disappointing to get up that early for nothing.   But on the third and fourth times we caught 52 and 24 so those were definitely worth it.  They are so tiny it is amazing to hold one.  We also got in baby hummers that were still in the nest and they were so tiny it was hard to imagine how they could still be alive.

            We had over 150 cases while I was here of 43 species that provided a wide range of experience.  The most common were robins and flickers but rarities like the osprey and green heron were really special to see.

            Overall this is a wonderful experience; it is a great opportunity to learn a great deal about wildlife care in a short amount of time.  I would like to thank all the volunteer and people I worked with while I was here, and especially Maj and Keith for allowing me to come here and have this experience and being great mentors.